Here's the conversation we had with the young folks minding the Scion booth during the Detroit auto show press-preview days:

This is Scion—Toyota's bid to capture the hearts and bucks of young people. That the brand was announced a full year ago with great gobs of marketing lingo and attitude—but no real cars to show—reveals something of the nature of the enterprise. Finally, at this year's Los Angeles show, the division unveiled its first production cars, the xA and the xB. Our experience at the Detroit show might have been an anomaly, but one certainly gets the impression that in the thumping dance music and Red Bull drinks that accompany a Scion affair, the least consequential aspect of the brand is the cars themselves.

So we decided to offer you, well, driving impressions of these two Japanese-bred vehicles. You know . . . cars.

Slated to go on sale in June 2003 in California (and a year from then on the East Coast), both cars are based on vehicles that sell well in the Japanese market. The U.S.-spec xA is called the Ist in Japan, and the xB is known as the bB back home.

Toyota didn't create a whole new range of platforms and engines for these vehicles. The xA and the xB are based on one of Toyota's most successful formulas ever, a front-wheel-drive subcompact platform powered by 1.5 liters that first appeared on the Vitz in Japan in 1999. There, myriad variations on one small-car theme are common. Cars such as the Funcargo and WiLL Vi—we're not likely to see them in the U.S.—also sit on the same platform.

Astute readers will recognize this platform and engine combination as the Toyota Echo's, which has had limited success in the American market since model year 2000. It, too, was intended to appeal to young so-called echo boomers, or the Net Gen, or Generation Y. Whatever, it hasn't. The median age of the Echo buyer is 45 (about four years older than a Honda Accord buyer), and so far Toyota hasn't sold 50,000 a year. The company blames the somewhat stodgy image of the brand name. Hence the trendy new brand name. We think it might also have something to do with the tall, dorky styling of the Echo and an almost nonexistent small-car market in the U.S.

Ah, but we were talking about the cars, right? Yes, the Ist (xA) we drove in Japan turned out to be a surprisingly good-handling vehicle that boasts an impressively high-quality interior. A new four-speed automatic transmission delivers timely, smooth gearchanges. It is perfectly matched to the 1.5-liter engine's midrange-torque-biased powerplant (the same unit found in the Echo).

Pumping out 108 horsepower at 6000 rpm and 104 pound-feet of torque at 4200 rpm, the Ist accelerates smoothly after a slightly sluggish start, owing to shallow bottom-end torque. Based on our experience with the Echo, we expect a 0-to-60 time of 8.7 to 9.0 seconds for manual-equipped xA and xB models.

The Ist has front and rear anti-roll bars and stiffened suspension settings compared with the tippy Echo, which has no rear anti-roll bar. The result is a car that's flat through corners while suffering from a relatively harsh ride. Toyota says the U.S. model will have slightly softer settings, so we'll reserve final judgment until we drive a U.S.-spec car. The xA will also have larger-diameter, wider tires than the skimpy donuts on the Echo. The 185/60-15 tires should improve lateral grip and braking compared with the Echo. Our last Echo posted a decent 186-foot stop from 70 mph and circled the skidpad at 0.75 g, slightly below average for an economy car. The brakes on the Ist, the same disc-and-drum combo as on an Echo, feel strong enough. The steering is precise and well weighted.

The driver gets a height-adjustable seat and a tilting steering wheel, permitting perfect driver positioning. Because the Ist rides on a wheelbase nearly four inches shorter than that of a Mini Cooper, the rear seat is somewhat hard to get into and out of. The official five-passenger capacity is overstatement.

Using an identical engine and suspension arrangement, the 1.5-liter bB (xB) also handles well, despite its ungainly appearance—it's two inches taller yet 20 inches shorter in length than a Subaru Forester. It offers plenty of room inside, thanks to that height as well as a wheelbase that's stretched five inches compared with the Ist's. It actually corners better, imparts more road information to the driver, and feels more stable the faster you drive. Its quirky cubic shape—think of a Honda Element stripped of rugged pretensions and shrunk—brought it fame three years ago in Japan, where cube-shaped cars are inexplicably fashionable. Like the xA, the xB will be offered with differently colored shift knobs, candy-colored keyless remote pads, and a few different wheel covers. Scion estimates that xA and xB prices will start at less than $16,000. This puts both in competition with a raft of small cars, including entries from Ford, Honda, Mazda, Hyundai, Kia, and parent company Toyota.

But whether these two vehicles—and the third installment due next year—will draw young buyers into Scion showrooms (which will reside inside existing Toyota stores) rests solely on the company's ability to convince customers that these products are as cool and hip as Japanese youngsters think they are. Exactly the thing Toyota couldn't do with the mechanically similar Echo.